Our last day in Israel and home

 Coral reefs looking out the Observatory's windows.

 Hub being hub.

 Red Sea Observatory and Aquarium

Our last day in Israel was a bit surreal.

After desert, desert, and more desert...we took a cab further south along the shore of the Red Sea and visited the Observatory and Aquarium.

A very neat place...just a few miles from the Egyptian border and far enough from Eilat ....to forget you're in a resort area.


We tackled the observatory first....We climbed several sets of stairs and ended up on the walkway.  Oh.....even on a hot day...there was a cool breeze off the water!  You could see the Jordanian mountains, Saudi Arabian Mountains...the base and mountains around Mt. Sinai in Egypt and of course the Israeli foothills and desert.  Amazing....and if you looked down into the clear water...you could see scattered coral reefs all around the base of the structure.


What is neat about this observatory is you can then climb down the stairs and descend a couple levels down into the Red Sea so you could see the the coral reefs and eye level. That was amazing.....so many colorful fishes....mantra rays....eels.....and gently swaying colorful coral.  It made you feel a thousand degrees cooler just to touch the cold viewing windows.


After our morning looking at fishes....we headed back to the hotel...packed....and did one more walk around the promenade.  We ended up at the Mall....and although I had absolutely no desire to eat at McDonalds.... we did....we were told by several people that the burgers taste so much better because they are kosher and not made with strange fillers.  So we ordered two hamburgers and chomped....hmmmmm.....I did think it tasted more  meaty....like there was actually beef in the burger.  Hub thought so too....maybe if I lived here I'd eat one occasionally but not at home anymore...the burgers have gotten too tan and salty and suspicious.


We flew out the next morning from the Eilat airport to Ben Gurion next to Tel Aviv.  Two domestic airlines leave about every 30 minutes headed north.  Some of the planes are older and propeller driven...fortunately I had a jet...but you'd never know.....since it filled up with people in a matter of minutes and everyone was talking and walking around when they could...it reminded me more of a bus trip than an airplane ride...and it was only 30 minutes long.


Still surprised by our good luck, we rendezvoused in Rome where we stayed overnight and caught planes home.  

This time I was the lucky one and flew business/first class home and hub flew to Ireland and caught a flight to New York then home.  I must admit...business class is nice...not for the food...(its more plentiful but it's still airplane food) but for the leg room...lots of leg room.  Oh my seat had a lever and I could adjust my back, my legs, my angle...amazing.  How comfortable....I'm ruined because I'll know the next time I fly cattle car section....I'm going to pass those comfy seats and return to the stiff cramped seats of coach.


We arrived home all on time.....with all our bags....and with our souvenirs intact.  It's always startling to find yourself home and still in one piece after traveling 14,000 miles.  Of course, in 5 minutes...you wonder if you ever left home...as the familiarity starts surrounding you and you settle back into your routine.


My Shutterfly book just arrived today documenting our trip haven't opened it yet......planning to look at it when I arrive in Hawaii tomorrow.  

Yes....I'm off early in the morning for Honolulu....and then the Big Island.......we have a family wedding there....and hub's siblings are getting together for a reunion.  Should be interesting...we are on the "sunny side" of the island for the wedding and the "rainy side" for the reunion and there's a big belching gassy volcano in between.


But oh....another long plane ride....and not in business class.

From the Desert to the Resort

 

It made my head spin....we were driving in the desert and then suddenly we're in a resort town hugging the bottom end inlet of the Red Sea.  Buildings and hotels all over....and blue blue cool-looking water in front of you.

I would have bet it was a mirage.

We were staying at the Queen of Sheba...a nice hotel clumped with several others near the water.  It had a huge pool and I was puzzled why there were so many people in it and so few in the sea.  Figured out later it's because the small strip of beach in front of the hotels is public property...you can go into the water and sit on the sand...(which feels like 1000 degrees) but if you want a chair or lounge chair with an umbrella ....you must pay the city about 10.00 bucks per day per chair....which is why so many people preferred the pool.

I wasn't ready to go in the water....but hub and I wanted to walk around a little and we had spotted an Aroma Cafe near the hotel...and our minds were mentally chanting "Iced Coffee  Get Iced Coffee."

We walked out the hotel lobby doors and I stopped dead in my tracks and looked around.....good lord had we stepped into a gigantic oven?  

We hit such an intense hot wall of heat....I almost stepped back into the lobby.  Dry heat or not....this was miserable.

Hub and I forged on....deciding to round the block before we treated ourselves to the Iced Coffee.  We were making the circle when suddenly my hub tugged on my arm.  "Ah...I don't feel good."

Holy Shit....I looked at him and all my nurse alarm bells started ringing.  He looked pale...and woozy.  Shit could he be dehydrated and sliding into heat stroke? 

I grabbed him by the arm and looked around and there was a big hotel right next to us.  

"In here," I said...tugging at him.  He didn't look good...and then as we neared the front door the guard for the hotel (all the hotels have armed guards in front of their doors) said..."Is this your hotel?"  Dumb me...I said "No."

"Well you can't come in here."  I looked at him and said..."My hub is going to keel over so we have to get inside."

He stepped aside and we scrambled to a seat in the cool lobby.  A minute later the guard came up to us and said very kindly...."there's a bar on the second floor for cold drinks."

I pulled on hub and stuffed him into the elevator.  He didn't look good even after resting in the cool air.  I literally ran up to the bar and ordered two cokes with ice....grabbed them and rushed back to the chair where I left him.

"Drink drink." 

 I was mentally thinking....okay this is Israel they have a good health system...I know there is a small hospital in this town....they probably have ambulances....and I can always take the ice out of the glass and directly apply it to his neck and chest while we wait for the paramedics.

Fortunately....he started to perk up....and my own heart rate started to go down too....I realized I was pretty damn hot too....but you forget yourself when your spouse turns pale.  

After a bit more sitting and the second cola....he said he could walk and move....and I ushered him out of this hotel and into our hotel about 1/2 block down.  I turned the AC up to max max when we hit our room....grabbed some money...and told him to rest while I went to the market to get another soda (for the sugar content ) and some bottled water since it was obvious we could not leave the hotel without a drink in hand.

I hit the exit doors.....and braced myself as a hot 114 degree wind pushed me. I mentally told myself I was hydrated....I would walk slowly and I would make it to the market two blocks down....but even with mental optimism...I was stunned how painful and intense the heat felt.

As I walked slowly to the market...I started worrying....how could we make it to Petra the next day?  How were we going to walk a mile or two in the heat...to get to the site?  Should we cancel?  Should we just hunker down in our rooms or in the Sea?

I was feeling woozy with heat and worry.

The Negev

The Negev.

For a thousand reasons, I wanted to go into the Negev.  The DNA test which shows I have links to the Bedouins,  my love of deserts, the beauty, the emptiness, the ability to see and be in a place that has been important to human civilization for thousands of years.   The crossroads for Abraham...Isaac....the Nabataens....the Egyptians...Phoenicians...Bedouin....Moabites....names from history and the Bible all mixed up together in this sand.


And yet I was disappointed....not by the desert but by my time there.  

Hub and I rose early and watched the sun rise. From our balcony, we could see little specks of people dutifully head out to the Dead Sea and start bobbing in the water. Our guide was there in the lobby, right on time, and off we went into the desert.

But the van/car arrangements had me sitting in the back seat and feeling more like a kid looking into a candy shop. The vastness of the desert and the distance we needed to cross meant there were stops....but really only pauses in the desert....not time enough to let this particular experience really settle into your soul.


It's one thing to BE in the desert and another thing to drive through the desert on a divided two lane highway.  I knew beforehand we would be taking regular roads....but still sometimes I just felt my heart sink as I saw and off-road track...or thought of camping or sitting quietly for hours.


The Negev is a beautiful desert...it has more texture than the parts of the soft Sahara I traveled through....it also has more industry...more military ...more human presence than the desert in Niger.  

I knew all that too...from studying Google maps....and reading tourist blogs about southern Israel.....yet when the reality was out my window....I still felt a bit disappointed. I was hemmed in....and not free. But...that was the price of seeing the desert....time constraints...political constraints...safety...all made this a passing through the desert for a trek into the desert.


I had hoped to find some mysterious connection to the Negev....but I didn't...in fact....it made me wonder if my DNA tests were wrong...not about the desert and the Bedouins...but if I had the wrong desert and Bedouins...for as soon as I saw the Red Mountains of Jordan....I felt my heart leap.

Yes....that's illogical....perhaps I'm just drawn to certain desert landscapes...and those landscapes contain sand and jagged rocks....which is how the Red Mountains appeared in the distance from my backseat view and exactly how the Air Mountains felt in Niger.  


In the end....I slightly chickened-out in the Negev...I had read on my Ipad the night before we headed into the desert.... that someone had loped a couple missiles from the Sinai into the part of the Negev we were driving in.  Our guide asked if I wanted to take the road along the Egyptian border to Eilat or the regular highway.  Surprisingly I didn't tell him to drive along the Egyptian border...I told him to take the highway...which seemed to disappoint him and certainly disappointed me.  

But I had no desire for the type of adventure that involves missiles ...I did not want to feel fear of the desert. So we traveled the more civilized path.  Perhaps at that point, I knew I couldn't get into the desert physically or mentally so why push it?


I'm glad I went through the Negev....I'm glad I saw it.

And then we were suddenly surrounded by hotels and condos and businesses....we were at the end of the highway.....and in the resort town of Eilat...which hugs the shores of the Red Sea.

The Dead Sea is very Dead.

Sunday morning arrives and it's time to leave Jerusalem.  Our guide, Dan, who will be driving us to Masada, the Dead Sea and through the Negev desert is supposed to meet us in the lobby of the hotel.  Trouble is, I don't know what he looks like or how old he is.  From his voice mail message to us on the hotel phone, I'm guessing he's older (50's?)...just because of a little wobble in his voice. 

There's tons of people in the lobby of the hotel this morning...and I  point to an older man who is mostly bald, has a big dangley earring in one ear and is wearing his belt buckle off to the side of his pants.  "That's probably our guide," I jokingly say to my husband.  Of course...he is. 


Dan had a lot to say from the minute we entered the van till we exited his van two days later.  He was unafraid to give us his opinions on politics, Arabs-Israeli relations and the United States.  Dan was been born in Israel and I'd guess he was 64ish.  Although he said he was one of the managers of our tour company, he also grew olives so he knew quite a bit about agriculture/farming in this part of the world and obviously had served a stint in the army too.


Dan wants us to stop at the Mount of Olives, the tallest point in Jerusalem, so we can see the Wall and the Golden Dome of the great Mosque, from a different angle.  It's a beautiful sight and the parking lot is already filled with drama because someone has brought a camel to this parking lot and a group of Japanese tourists are waiting in line for a 30 second ride on a camel.  Their whole group (I'm thinking 30 folks) must be armed with at least 300 cameras....which click all at the same time as one of their members mounts the lone camel.


Several men come over to greet Dan....he switches his language to Arabic..."Just cousins" he said with a laugh.  I don't know what he means...but it's obvious he has a good relationship with some of the bus drivers of other tours.  "Let's move along," he says..."I want to stop at a kibbutz outside of Masada."  I'm not sure if there's something for us to see or if he has business there and we're just tagging along.


Surprisingly, on the other side of Jerusalem...in just a few minutes you are out into the desert.  There are Bedouin camped far back from the road in tents and sheds made of sheet metal.  "They like to live like that," Dan says..."They don't like the cities....it's not in their blood."  He is probably right about this...as I've read articles about the Israeli government building houses for the Bedouin and finding the people dislike them and abandon them.  

Makes more sense, in a way, to let the Bedouin decide where they want to live and accommodate them.  Dan also mentions that the Bedouin are disappearing...that there aren't too many generations left to live out in the wild. Bedouins by their very culture ...roam...but because of politics...boundaries and political realities .....they can not move freely over the landscape like they had for thousands of years.  Bedouins must belong...and they have to belong to one country or another...must have ID papers....must respect borders that are foreign to them.


Very soon we come to an oasis...apparently it's a kibbutz outside of the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.  The reserve is huge...about 6000 acres and it shelters a variety of wild life and fauna because of 4 springs which irrigate the area.  This kibbutz is growing lots of date palms and Dan points out how they are genetically making the date palms smaller so they don't have to use such large and expensive equipment on the trees.  As soon as a date palm sprouts dates at the crown, they must be bagged...with mesh...or else all sorts of birds and bats eat the fruit.  Long ago, guys would climb up the trees to put protective covers on the dates....then came cherry pickers ...and now with smaller date palms...I think they only need a ladder?


Of course with our cameras still packed away, we see a small herd of Nubian Ibex and then there's a bunch of these furry guys hugging a drainage pipe.  In fact, there's a whole crowd of furry creatures hugging the pipes in the shade.  Dan tells us these are Syrian Hyrax, which look to me like fat woodchucks, and they hug the pipes throughout the day to cool off.  Most of them look like they are hanging on for dear life...and maybe they are...because when I step out of the van....I want to return to the comfort of the van in about two minutes.

It's only a short trip down the road and we turn into a almost deserted stretch of highway that leads to Masada.  There's a bunch of palm trees in the parking lot  (click on pic to enlarge) but they are pitiful against the sun and temperatures of 105.  The National Park has closed the hiking trail up to Masada because of the heat danger but I can't imagine why anyone in the middle of the day would even consider attempting a 4 hour hike uphill.  Dan informs us that people try to hike all the time...even in blistering temperatures.   He says quite definitively, "You can not carry as much water as your body needs on a day like today up this hill."  I see no reason to disagree with him.


I don't like heights and I've been a bit worried about taking the aerial tram from the base of the visitor center to the top of Masada...but for some reason ...I get in the tram....I'm alright and I'm surprised I am alright.  


We arrive at the plateau of Masada and as soon as you start walking around....your mind fogs...the same kind of historical fog I felt in Herod's courtyard in Jerusalem......because this is the site of a famous Roman/Israelite confrontation about 2000 years ago. 

 Jews from Jerusalem have fled to the top of this plateau after the Romans destroy the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  They harass the Romans from the safety of this plateau and so the Roman Emperor tells his troops to capture these rebels.  Herod built a house and fortifications on this plateau long before the Romans caused this trouble so the rebels know there are deep cisterns which hold large amounts of water and storage areas on the top of the plateau to hold food.  So the rebels prepare to outlast the Romans.


The Romans, using slave labor, took three years to create an embankment on the back side of Masada from which they could launch an attack on the rebels who had lived on top of the plateau.  In the end, the Romans attack the plateau but the rebels at the last minute commit suicide rather than surrender to the Romans.  So the Romans waited and occupied the base of Masada for three years and in the end had no prisoners or gains to show the Roman Emperor. 


Interesting story.  Interesting how anybody could live on this plateau....you feel so high and isolated...in its own way it feels to me like you're living in a prison.  The top is 1.5 miles across so it's not a small plateau but when  you think of a couple hundred people living in this one mile of land ....never being able to get off....it feels claustrophobic.  I was actually happy to get into the tram going back down to the visitor center. Dan points out the earthquake and seismic activity sensors built in the wall by the tram....yep earthquakes happen here...which is just the information you want to know when you step into a tram hanging on a steel cable connect to towers that might shake.


At the visitor center, we were hungry and thirsty and turn a corner and there's a McDonalds???  Yes...at the visitor center in Masada there's a couple of food vendors and one of them is McDonald's. 

 Dan encouraged us to get a burger because the beef is Kosher..."it tastes better" ...he said...but I pass...and instead get an Aroma Cafe Iced Coffee....a highly addictive drink...which is frosty, gives me eye pain/brain freeze...but feeelsssss sooo goood going down.

After our very late lunch, it's time to head to our hotel and the Dead Sea.  It's not too far down the road.  Off to side....you can see the Dead Sea which in the late afternoon is a striking blue-green against the desert background.

We check in and Dan warns us not to drink the water at the hotel because the faucet water is salty and not for drinking.  It's a strange arrangement....and there are signs posted in the bathroom not to drink or use the water for personal hygiene.  If you want to brush your teeth or have a glass of water....you  trudge down the hall with a glass bottle to get water from a spigot in the utility room.


It's now about 4:30 pm and hub and I put our bathing suits on and trudge down to the Sea.  The sand is a thousand degrees hot even with sandals on.  We claim a couple of chairs with umbrellas and head off to the Sea.


There's a slight salty hot smell in the air.... the water close to the beach is bathtub warm.  It's strange to enter the water and feel warm instead of cool.  It's more like a hot tub.  I wade out from the beach till the water is waist high.....and try to bob down so my shoulders and neck will be wet.  

That is....I try to bob down....I mean I try...really try and the water is like magic and you can not bob down...it literally throws you forward or backwards.  At first, I almost lost my footing and plunged forward...but I tipped myself back and ended up floating on my back.  I never float on my back....but there is no effort involved .....you simply lie back and your feet spring up and there you are floating.  It's very Bizarre.  I didn't stay float on my back for long because the sun is still beating down on me in the hot water and it's making me feel a little sick...like over-heated sick.


I manage to get my feet on the sand....and turn my back to the sun.  My skin feels weird.  Have you ever poured regular chlorine bleach on your hands?  And you skin becomes weirdly smooth..???
That's how your skin feels that's been in the Sea.  

I decide to get out of the water... shower off....and head to my chair to dry off.  Hub felt weird too...and his skin felt the same way....so this must be the rejuvenating effect of the water.  We dried off and decided to try the Sea one more time.  I was ready this time...and didn't try bobbing...just splashed water on my torso.  There's no way you could dive in or swim underwater....so I figured splashing was the way to go.  It was still difficult to stay in the water....hot sun...hot water...hot smell.  So hub and I got out again after about 15 minutes and restes.  My skin, when dry, was a soft as a baby's ass.  I could not believe how smooth it was....I totally understand why some people want to be here...for skin reasons...but I'm not sure if I could tolerate the Sea for more than a dunk or two. I certainly couldn't imagine staying here for a week or two just for the water...but the Sea helps some people who suffer from skin diseases so I'm sure if this was the cure ...I would take it.

Our hotel room was on the 15th floor...so after we came back to our room....we sat on the balcony for a while and watched the slow parade of tourists make their way to Sea.  

Our beach below did not have mud....the famous mud people smear on their bodies at the Dead Sea.  I was okay with that....I wasn't sure I wanted to smear hot mud on myself at this point...and I guess the nurse is me would want to know what's in the mud and where has it been and who has done what to it...before applying it to my skin. So I was happy to have smooth skin from just the Sea sans mud...and very happy to be out of the Dead Sea.

And I start my time in Israel....with....(of course) ...Elvis.

I am home now...and finally getting a chance to write about Israel and Petra and funny stuff that was hard to retell....when you're dog tired at the end of the day and facing the peck peck electronic keyboard of an Ipad. 

My hub and I miraculously arrived in Israel at the same time.  My plane was late ...his plane on time out of Rome.... and there we were in the baggage claim area....staring at each other....well hello there.......which was great.... because we could get our bags and start towards Jerusalem.


A friend of mine here in town who has been to Jerusalem about 20 times, told us to take a "sheroot" to the city...essentially a van/shuttle you share with other folks.  Yes, it was cheaper...but most of all ....you'll see parts of the city you'll probably never go to...since the van drops people off right in front of their house.

Our first stop off the Going-to-Jerusalem Highway was near a Kibbutz which looked like a dude ranch... there was a horse on the sign and  horseshoe logos scattered around (although I did not actually see any horses).  Not quite what I was expecting for a Kibbutz near Jerusalem. We left off a guy who looked like an aging Australian Hippie...and turned back to the highway.  That's when I poked my husband's side....

"Do you see that?"

"What?"

"That statue.....is that .....ELVIS?"


We stared wide-eyed with mouths open.  Yes....there in the middle of a gravel parking lot....was Elvis holding up his hand as if he were waving to the people on their way to Jerusalem.

 I turned around and caught a glimpse of a gas station and restaurant labeled "Elvis Inn." I rubbed my eyes....really.... in Israel next to a dude ranch on the way to Jerusalem?  Elvis? 

Apparently yes....the Inn and Elvis have been there for many years owned by two brothers Amon and Uri who are ardent Elvis fans.... the place apparently attracts folk who follow Elvis and folks who don't but really can't believe what they are seeing so they go in or stop anyways.  Trust me, if I wasn't in the sheroot....I'd be in the gift shop checking out Elvis salt and pepper shakers to see if they have a "I'm all shook up in Jerusalem" label on them.  I mean...how awesome would that be...lol.

Although the next stops by the sheroot were not Elvis oriented...they were different in their own way. People were left off deep in Orthodox or very conservative neighborhoods were women and girls on this hot hot day were covered up with long sleeves and long skirts and some men wore Hassidic garb.  

When we got to our hotel....we decided since it was getting late in the day....we should make our way to the Old Section of Jerusalem and see the Western Wall at sunset.  

By map....the walk was supposed to be about 10 minutes....in the heat and in the way Israel works ...it turned out to be more like 25 minutes.  

We eventually ended up in the Arab quarter Souk (long narrow alleyways where merchants have their shops) which we had to navigate through before we hit the Western Wall.  My hub was uncomfortable as men tried to stop and show him things or give him their cards....I was fine.... I had been in the Middle East before and knew the hellos and come-see-my-shop and look-at-this-fine-souvenir-were normal banter.

We finally were near the Wall....the Souk ended and we ended up in a small office with a metal detector and an exit door out to the square. We put our cameras and bags through the scanner and then stepped through the opening into a large square.  I had seen a thousand pictures of this area.... so it seemed familiar.  

The square and the Wall looked much smaller than I pictured it.  The light was starting to fade....but there were still plenty of people around.  

If you're not religiously conservative....you immediately notice the disproportionate way the area in front of the wall has been divided. 

In this rather small space...there's a large wooden fence which divides the square into a men's and women's section.  2/3 of the space is given to the men's section and a high wall separates a much smaller area for the women.  You can't go up as a man and woman together to the Wall to pray....you must be segregated. I showed my hub where to go.....then I headed for the women's section.


To Jews....the Western Wall still contains the spirit of G-d so hence is very scared.  As I moved to the wall....trying to get into the right frame of mind....I heard wailing....and looked over into the men's section where Ultra-Orthodox men, Hassidim, where crying. 

 I remember reading some people cry at the wall because they morn the lose of the temple and the closeness to G-d...but I was still surprised to hear the wailing.  As I moved into the narrow confines of the women section....again trying to get into a spiritual frame of mind....I heard crying again...this time not from a man.... but from a young girl.  

Very thin...covered up with a scarf and long sleeves and long skirt....she was crying into her prayerbook.  Actually, she was rubbing her face with the prayerbook and sobbing into it.  The nurse in me kicked in....and I wanted to go up to her and say, "Are you alright?"...Intellectually, I knew she was probably in a trance or mild hysteria...which can be a common state for religious people when they are near a holy shrine of their faith......but the sound of her crying....the picture of her weeping and wiping the prayer book on her face....wouldn't leave me.  

I approached the Wall which was had two layers of women in front of it.  Covered with scarves and holding prayerbooks...they were not moving and it was quite obvious they weren't going to share the space.    With some discreet elbowing.... I wedged in between two women....and placed my hand on the Wall.  

I began to quietly say a prayer...when I heard this very loud audible "tisk"....apparently one of the women looked up and saw that I had red nail polish on my hands and was making tisk-tisk noises at me. 

 Hmmmmmm...I'd never read anything to suggest that a hand with nail polish was not permitted...so I tried to tune her out.   I closed my eyes.....left my red-nailed hand on the Wall....and tried to find a spiritual doorway.  It was hard to find that doorway....probably cause I was looking too hard for it.


I left the Wall...and found my hub....and we stood around watching the parade of people coming and going as the sun set and the square got darker.  We noticed most of the people praying where either tourists like ourselves or Ultra-Orthodox/Hassidim in their very distinctive clothes.  One man, from a particular Polish sect, walked by with such a large round fur hat on it was startling....it looked like a bear was perched on his head....even more startling was the site of him whipping out his cell phone as he walked away from the Wall...I kept thinking geez if you're going to dress and live like it's 1880 ....you should probably be shouting into a shofar or speaking face to face with someone since cellphones did not exist a 100 plus years ago.


We stumbled around the Old City till we found a restaurant ...correction...smelled lamb on a spit...and discovered we were in the Armenian section of the Old City.  We disappeared down an old low arch and some narrow stone stairs and found a dining room with one long table left open. We sat down next to a couple from Toronto.  She was Jordanian and he was originally from Canada...they had two small children in tow.  

The woman was warm and funny and telling us what mischief and tricks to watch out for....clerks put 112 dollars instead of shekels on your MasterCard bill....cab drivers that don't turn the meter on....all manner of tricks to be played on bewildered tourists.  I enjoyed her enthusiasm so much...but I was so tired and hungry at this point from our travels from Rome and finding the Old Section that I realized I probably didn't look very enthusiastic and she grew quiet...if not disappointed in our conversation.


After dinner we struggled home...by that I mean it was hot and most of the trip was uphill to the hotel. Tired ...Tired... I hit the bed and started to drift off...but I heard ......wailing....crying.....and I wasn't sure if the sound was my memory from the Wall or my imagination or something on TV in the next room.  

It was ...confusing....and I sunk down into a deep sleep in Jerusalem.